Friday, 29 March

1D1F: Bawumia opens fertiliser blending factory in E/R

News
Vice-President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, on Thursday, 15 August 2019, opened Ghana’s largest fertiliser factory at Asuboi in the Ayensuano District of the Eastern Region.

With a production capacity of over 800,000 metric tonnes per year, the Glofert Fertiliser Factory, a wholly Ghanaian-owned company built under the One District-One Factory initiative of the Nana Akufo-Addo government, is the first fertiliser production plant outside the Tema Industrial enclave and produces all kinds of fertilisers, notably Urea, Ammonium Sulphate, as well as NPKs which are widely used by farmers in Ghana and across the continent of Africa.

Ghana has an annual fertiliser requirement of 600,000 metric tonnes, according to officials of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture.

Dr Bawumia expressed delight at the successful partnership between the government, represented by the One District-One Factory Secretariat, and the private sector represented by Glofert Limited, which had led to the creation of jobs and the production of increased crop yields for Ghanaian farmers.

“There is something special about today. Today we are adding one more major step toward achieving the President’s vision of building a Ghana Beyond Aid. Because one of the pathways to achieving this vision is through agricultural transformation — making farming attractive, increasing farmers’ productivity, increasing their income and making it possible for agriculture to support industrialisation,” he stated.

“The government of H.E. Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has been very keen about delivering on its promise to create a viable, self-sustaining economy. One of the means by which this can be achieved is through modern industrialisation and to reduce our dependence on the outside world through imports to produce our own food,” the Vice-President said, adding it would largely be done through the One District-One factory Initiative.

According to the Ministry of Trade and Industry, 181 1D1F projects are at various stages of implementation. As of mid-year, 2019; 57 projects were in operation and 22 are under construction. An additional 33 projects financed by local PFIs are ready for implementation before the end of 2019. Fifty-six small-scale processing facilities projects under the Enable Youth Initiative financed by the African Development Bank (AfDB) will begin construction across 56 districts before the end of 2019. Five Common User Processing Facilities projects to be owned by organised farmer groups, funded by the AfDB will commence construction before the end of 2019.

“In addition, eight large-scale processing plants financed under the China National Building Materials (CNBM) Corporation facility are currently being processed to begin implementation before the end of 2019,” Dr Bawumia added.

The Vice-President disclosed that the government has recently obtained parliamentary approval for a tax incentives framework covering various tax exemptions for companies seeking to operate under the 1D1F programme, including a five-year tax holiday; waiver from import duties and taxes on equipment, machinery and parts; waiver from payment of duties and levies on raw materials; and a waiver from the payment of withholding taxes.

Alluding to the fact that Glofert alone can meet the country’s fertiliser needs, in addition to the fertiliser produced by the four other producers, Dr Bawumia charged the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, the Ghana Cocoa Board (Cocobod) and other stakeholders to now buy from domestic sources and not waste valuable foreign exchange on fertiliser imports.

For his part, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Glofert, Rev Foster Mawuli Benson, expressed appreciation to the government for the support which has led to the establishment of the factory that has provided full-time employment for 35 persons and casual employment for 180 others.

Source: Ghana/ClassFMonline.com/91.3FM

Source: Emmanuel Mensah